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Saturday, August 28, 2010

Well the 2010 retreat is finished. Dates have been booked and it's too early to start counting how many sleeps til 2011! We had a fantastic time - sewing, eating, laughing, eating, chatting, eating, sewing, eating etc. The weather was beautiful - we have been so lucky every year when we go - clear sunny skies, not too hot days, lovely cold nights.

We arrived early Friday morning and unpacked and setup. Off to the pub for a group hug and lunch. Not to mention a few jokes with the hotel bosses and the purchase of a dozen free range eggs for most of us.Back to our venue and sewing by 2pm Friday.I didn't take as many photos as I should have - was I too busy sewing?? - but I took a few towards the end.

We had a "To Do" board. Everyone had their own pad of "post it" notes - little flowery ones. For each project that they had brought along, they wrote out a slip and stuck it on the "To Do" side of the board. The idea was to move the project to the "Done" side as they finished it (or it finished them because of the lack of some essential ingredient!). Each time someone 'made the move' there was a little celebration and a round of clapping for the Show & Tell". It was NOT a competition - since some people had lots of little projects and some (like me) had large projects. It was all in fun!

Here is a picture of the board well into the retreat!

Still a lot to do - and not all of them got moved over!

Oh - by the way that little bit on the bottom left was an exercise chart - you know - eye exercises, arm stretching. Did we do it??? NO - we should have but somehow it just never happend. But I have a cunning plan for next year . . . .

My main focus for the retreat was to make 2 blue & cream quilts. I did that - made the two tops and got one almost quilted. I was happy enough with that . Here is one as a Work in Progress.

Here is another picture that perhaps does not need any explanation!!

All in all we had a great time.

I think everyone was very happy with what they achieved and we all got on together so well.

Since I have come home, I have finished the first quilt - its quilted and bound, though it does need a label. A picture soon.

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Ony 2 sleeps to go and preparations are well under way. Really I could have / should have started cutting weeks ago - but I work best under pressure! Here are the strips all cut - still need to cut a lot of squaes - hopefully my maths is OK and I will end up with the right number plus some spares. Plans are for two quilts - each 10 rows of 10 squares - 6.5" sqaures and no borders. We will see how I go.